Has your GM shocked you lately?

[Hammerhead]

Sagiro totally suckered us - again! - last game. The perpetrator of a nefarious and deadly plot turned out to be a NPC who was a PC's best friend when the campaign started, and we just saw less of her once we started adventuring. Turns out she had been recruited by the bad guys...

...so now she's a foe, but still an old and dear friend. That resolution is going to make for some interesting role playing.

If you're talking about who I think you're talking about, you had fair warning. He warned you not to trust her, after all

I also have trouble shocking my players, since all of their characters are so horrifically jaded and cynical that it stifles any kind of emotional reaction. Sad, really. One of the great shockers of my last campaign was when they discovered that the sixth prophesied hero who would save the world was an old enemy of theirs, a sentient simulacrum of an evil sorcerer. He was once their friend, then betrayed them, and was then murdered by them. He kind of held a grudge, and wasn't inclined to work with the PCs.

 

[Gundark]

This is a great thread. Thanks for reviving it .

One time the campaign revolved around killing the BBEG around level 10 they managed to accomplish this. They then met the next BBEG who was a lover of the first BBEG. This time I involved the love between the two villians as a plot device. I guess what was shocking for the group (and was shocking for me) was that the party felt less of a resolve to defeat the 2nd BBEG as they felt sorry for them as the villians were denied being together. It was an interesting twist in how the story went.

 

[Christian]

I think our DM was trying last session, but we haven't really 'connected' to all the NPCs enough yet for it to be effective.

Me: "Will the fact that the BBEG is Dordek's sister keep you from fireballing her?
Wizard: "H***, no!"
Me: "Just checking."

 

[Piratecat]

If you're talking about who I think you're talking about, you had fair warning. He warned you not to trust her, after all

I am, and we did, and you're right! In fact, remembering that was what caused me to realize who was behind the plot. But in all fairness, the DM warned us (through a NPC) more than five years ago in REAL time, and we followed up at the time only to be told that everything was okay.

Man, Sagiro is a rat bastard.

 

[The_Universe]

To answer the title post, yes.

We started a Mutants and Masterminds campaign expecting to battle Super-Communists at the dawn of the cold war, but now we're fighting an interplanar war against Atlantean Techno-Nazis! What a switcheroo!

Curse you, Aim-54!

 

[Obrysii]

The biggest shock was when all of the PCs were killed and we were brought back as undead experiments. That was weird.

As far as me being the GM, I hope the biggest shock to the PCs would have been when they learned that Sion, the weird little guy who'd been following them around and proved himself to be utterly incompetenet (ie, Str 8, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 10 or something similar) and useless, turned out to be the true Avatar of Elek, the last remaining "god" in my world. He had assumed the pathetic form to test whether or not the PCs were worthy of bearing the 'holy artifacts'...

I don't know if th at was a real shock to them or not.

 

[Piratecat]

To answer the title post, yes.

We started a Mutants and Masterminds campaign expecting to battle Super-Communists at the dawn of the cold war, but now we're fighting an interplanar war against Atlantean Techno-Nazis! What a switcheroo!

Ah. So it's 'same-old, same-old', then? Well, some day you'll pry yourself out of this rut.

 

[Kid Socrates]

I have not played in a game in what feels like forever, but I can chime in on the shocking of players, because a few months ago, I got to shock two of them in as great a way as I ever have.

In my Final Fantasy game, I had a subplot going with a man named Eidel, who apparently was hiring bounty hunters to kidnap summoners. Upon catching and clubbing some of the bounty hunters, my party (which includes summoners) found out that Eidel was kidnapping the summoners to keep them safe from a fallen god known only as The Destroyer, and the cult that worshipped him, led by a man calling himself Lord Hades. Eidel was training the summoners to combat the Destroyer, as only summoners possess the power to defeat this monstrosity.

That was very early on, about session 7 or 8 when they found that out. About forty sessions later, Naoko and Darien, the two summoners, decide finally to meet with Eidel at his stronghold, now that they felt they were strong enough to confront him. Upon their arrival, they found out that only a few people ever got to meet Eidel himself, and they heard about how he took up fighting the Destroyer because he lost his parents years ago to a cult serving the Destroyer.

They were quickly caught up in a murder mystery, where agents of the Destroyer had infiltrated the stronghold and killed a number of Eidel's faculty and were terrorizing the mostly young students. The more they interacted with Eidel's help, the more they started to trust him, though they had yet to meet him. They saved a few lives, found out that the Destroyer was to blame, and raced to Eidel to stop him from executing an innocent man.

The name "Eidel" was chosen for two reasons. One, because it's pronounced Idol, as this character had become akin to a false god for these summoners fearing for their lives. Two, because one meaning of the base word, "Eidolon," is "phantom, or illusion." Eidel actually was Lord Hades, collecting summoners in one place to sacrifice to the Destroyer and give Him power like the world had never known.

I have not been gaming a long time -- only about seven, eight years now. I will remember the first time I have ever seen a player honestly shake with rage. Not at me, I had to verify after the session -- she thought it was an awesome twist, she should have seen it coming (I had dropped a hint or two), and it made perfect sense. "I was ready to trust him, too!"

I don't think I've had anything else on that level, but man was that a fun session.